During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students. In viewing my CT’s teaching style, I would describe it as clear and organized, enthusiastic, and personalized/invested. First off, walking in I was surprised how clean the classroom was. Typically, if I were to describe a science teacher’s classroom, from making it up or from my own experiences in a variety of classrooms, it would not be described as neat and orderly; regardless, all books and materials were in order and her personal desk was very well kept. Still, it kept in the spirit of a science classroom with many bright displays and posters, while also having individual boards for each of her classes and the standards they were trying to address in the current unit. It translated over to working with students, as each student was prepared with all their materials she gave them (reference sheets for unit conversion, pre-made packets, and note-taking outlines) and could grab everything they needed quickly and efficiently to get down to work.
She jumped into the day’s class with great enthusiasm to up the engagement level while asking students questions to keep a balance between her talking and their contributions, but not in an overbearing way that stressed kids who were not contributing, which I noted. It kept the energy of the class up, and once they left to do their work, she discussed with me the final descriptor of her style--invested. She may not have used the exact words, but the way she interacted and talked about her students demonstrated it clearly. Students in this school are given numerical grades, but also “Habits of Work” grades, which are determined by how a student behaves in class, if they can interact respectfully with others, and if they can meet deadlines; she want her students to be good people, not just good students. Another instance demonstrating her investment to teaching is the stress she puts on family communication and knowing her students. When I came in, a class was ending and I viewed an interaction between my CT and a student; the student was in a bad mood and had felt disrespected at the beginning of class, when the CT had talked with the class about developing certain skills to improve their assignments. The student took offense and my CT had noticed a change in behavior, which prompted her to call home, only to find out the student was having a number of problems that explained why they were often unprepared or interpreting comments negatively.
Overall, the most appealing aspects of my CT’s teaching style are her organizational abilities and how it translates to her classroom management, and how she interacts with her students. I am a fan of organization overall and would envision myself as having a neat classroom, but finding ways to make my students more efficient and organized will make my class run much more smoothly. I like how the students had all the materials they needed--reference sheets, note outlines, and the like, before they even began the lesson. Small steps like this increase the fluidity of transitions, ensuring engagement continues even as activities shift, and would allow for me to actually work with students rather than spending time preparing (making copies, directions, redirections etc.) them to work alone.
Also, much like in my teaching philosophy, she values knowing her students as people. Knowing there was a problem with a student and going to lengths to understand the situation was very inspiring, to know that educators like her exist. Even when the student responded rudely, she was polite and remained open to talking later on if the student wanted to return to the issue. Sometimes I feel like the drive to go above and beyond like that is lacking, especially at the high school level, but I do view it as important. To integrate this into my teaching style would mean actually knowing what is going on with my students outside of my classroom, outside of the school even, as all these other interactions go on to guide the behavior I will be seeing in my class. The class and the teacher were in no sort of struggle for power; everyone was respectful and encouraged to participate, not just be submissive and sit listening to the teacher lecture. Creating strong relationships with my students is important to me and I aim to never have power be an issue in my classroom; I think it would be hard to build rapport with anyone, never mind a teacher, if you thought they viewed you as inferior or less because they are older/smarter/have more degrees/have more power, regardless of what the other party is thinking.
During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students.
In viewing my CT’s teaching style, I would describe it as clear and organized, enthusiastic, and personalized/invested. First off, walking in I was surprised how clean the classroom was. Typically, if I were to describe a science teacher’s classroom, from making it up or from my own experiences in a variety of classrooms, it would not be described as neat and orderly; regardless, all books and materials were in order and her personal desk was very well kept. Still, it kept in the spirit of a science classroom with many bright displays and posters, while also having individual boards for each of her classes and the standards they were trying to address in the current unit. It translated over to working with students, as each student was prepared with all their materials she gave them (reference sheets for unit conversion, pre-made packets, and note-taking outlines) and could grab everything they needed quickly and efficiently to get down to work.
She jumped into the day’s class with great enthusiasm to up the engagement level while asking students questions to keep a balance between her talking and their contributions, but not in an overbearing way that stressed kids who were not contributing, which I noted. It kept the energy of the class up, and once they left to do their work, she discussed with me the final descriptor of her style--invested. She may not have used the exact words, but the way she interacted and talked about her students demonstrated it clearly. Students in this school are given numerical grades, but also “Habits of Work” grades, which are determined by how a student behaves in class, if they can interact respectfully with others, and if they can meet deadlines; she want her students to be good people, not just good students. Another instance demonstrating her investment to teaching is the stress she puts on family communication and knowing her students. When I came in, a class was ending and I viewed an interaction between my CT and a student; the student was in a bad mood and had felt disrespected at the beginning of class, when the CT had talked with the class about developing certain skills to improve their assignments. The student took offense and my CT had noticed a change in behavior, which prompted her to call home, only to find out the student was having a number of problems that explained why they were often unprepared or interpreting comments negatively.
Overall, the most appealing aspects of my CT’s teaching style are her organizational abilities and how it translates to her classroom management, and how she interacts with her students. I am a fan of organization overall and would envision myself as having a neat classroom, but finding ways to make my students more efficient and organized will make my class run much more smoothly. I like how the students had all the materials they needed--reference sheets, note outlines, and the like, before they even began the lesson. Small steps like this increase the fluidity of transitions, ensuring engagement continues even as activities shift, and would allow for me to actually work with students rather than spending time preparing (making copies, directions, redirections etc.) them to work alone.
Also, much like in my teaching philosophy, she values knowing her students as people. Knowing there was a problem with a student and going to lengths to understand the situation was very inspiring, to know that educators like her exist. Even when the student responded rudely, she was polite and remained open to talking later on if the student wanted to return to the issue. Sometimes I feel like the drive to go above and beyond like that is lacking, especially at the high school level, but I do view it as important. To integrate this into my teaching style would mean actually knowing what is going on with my students outside of my classroom, outside of the school even, as all these other interactions go on to guide the behavior I will be seeing in my class. The class and the teacher were in no sort of struggle for power; everyone was respectful and encouraged to participate, not just be submissive and sit listening to the teacher lecture. Creating strong relationships with my students is important to me and I aim to never have power be an issue in my classroom; I think it would be hard to build rapport with anyone, never mind a teacher, if you thought they viewed you as inferior or less because they are older/smarter/have more degrees/have more power, regardless of what the other party is thinking.